


The Movie In My Mind

by eternaleponine



Series: Ghosts That We Knew [15]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Deleted Scene, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-12
Updated: 2014-03-12
Packaged: 2018-01-15 11:42:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1303654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eternaleponine/pseuds/eternaleponine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/531381/chapters/1442170">Chapter 36</a> of <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/531381/chapters/942536">Ghosts That We Knew</a> from social worker Mr. Coulson's point of view.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Movie In My Mind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RoS13](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoS13/gifts).



When the door of his office swung open after school hours, Mr. Coulson looked up expecting to see a teacher or another member of the faculty. He didn't have any appointments, but it wasn't unusual for someone to drop by at the end of the day to bring something to his attention, or to follow up. It wasn't as if they had a lot of time during the day.

He didn't expect to see a student. He certainly didn't expect to see _two_ students, and especially not the two students who probably most needed and least wanted his help. He looked at his watch – had he mistaken the time? – and then at his calendar which was up on his computer. School was definitely over, and he didn't have anything saying that they'd scheduled anything. "Did we have a meeting for today?" he asked. "I didn't think we had one until the end of next week."

"We don't," Clint said. "We just... need to talk to you."

There was something in his face – both of their faces, although Clint's was much more of an open book than Natasha's – that made him pretty sure that this didn't have anything to do with their independent study that he had, perhaps foolishly, volunteered to be their advisor on. He'd mostly done it because he didn't think he would be able to find anyone else to take the two of them on, and it gave him an excuse to meet with them regularly that they weren't likely to balk at, so he could keep tabs on them.

Still, he had to ask. "About the independent study, or...?" He looked back and forth between the pair, but neither of them would make eye contact. 

"No. Not about that. About..." Clint glanced at Natasha like he expected her to say something, to chime in and save him from whatever it was he was struggling to say. She didn't. Instead, she stared resolutely at a spot on the wall, so intent on it that it almost made the social worker turn and look. "About something else," Clint finally finished.

Finally Natasha looked at him, but only for a second, and then she found another place to fix her gaze, on the floor this time. "If you have time," she said, her tone clearly indicating that she didn't expect him to, or maybe hoped that he wouldn't. "If you don't have time, we can—"

He wasn't stupid, and they weren't subtle. "I have time," Mr. Coulson said. Even if he hadn't, he would make time. There were other kids in school with problems, but these two... these two and Bruce Banner pretty much took the cake. "Why don't we go in here?"

He waited for them to find seats in the room that he used for group meetings, thinking they would be more comfortable where anyone walking past couldn't peer through the glass and see them, and anyway a couch was better than a hard plastic chair. 

Clint sat, then Natasha, and he saw the distance that she so carefully put between them, like she was afraid that he might touch her... but no, that wasn't it. Not exactly. She wasn't afraid of him. More like she was afraid... of what? Letting anyone get close? Her shoulders were drawn in, her chin up, jaw set, and it would have looked haughty, aloof, like she thought herself above all of this if it wasn't so obvious that she was just trying to hold herself together.

And maybe that's what the distance was about. If she let herself be touched, she would crumble.

He settled into his own chair, facing both of them but not directly. He didn't want it to seem like a confrontation. They'd come to him for a reason, but if he approached this wrong, they would clam up and bolt. "What's going on?"

No response. He gave them a minute, then another, and was about to ask again when Clint reached out and put his hand on her back, and when she looked at him, he signed something to her. She signed something back, and then they were having a conversation that Mr. Coulson couldn't follow. He had picked up a few signs; he had to know _something_ to have an idea if they were really doing any work on their independent study or if they were just pulling the wool over his eyes, but this was too fast, with too many signs he didn't know (which, really, was most of them)... but it was proof that they were definitely doing _something_ with the time they were given.

Still, it wasn't productive. Or maybe it was, for them, but if he was going to be any help at all, they were going to have to let him into the loop. "Guys? If I'm going to help you, I'm going to need you to actually say words. Out loud. In a language I can understand."

Their fingers flew, and he opened his mouth to say something again when finally Natasha looked at him and spoke. "Okay." She looked away, and he saw her take Clint's hand before looking back at him, her expression somewhere between blank and grim. "I need you to call FBI."

Mr. Coulson felt his jaw drop and his eyebrows go up as if trying to meet his receding hairline. That... was not what he'd expected. In fact, he was pretty sure it had never even occurred to him, at any point in his career, that he would have a student come in and ask him to call the FBI. Yes, he'd called the police once or twice, and Child Protective Services on any number of occasions – sometimes at the request of a student and sometimes because he was a mandatory reporter and even though they would never believe him and possibly never forgive him, he had to believe what he was doing was for their own good – but never the FBI.

Maybe she didn't understand what she was asking. Her grasp of English was far from perfect. But he would have thought that if she'd said something wrong, if she was asking for the wrong thing, that Clint would have corrected her, or clarified somehow. And Clint wasn't saying anything.

Okay. Deep breath. "What's going on, Natasha?"

He saw her grip on Clint's hand tighten, saw the way that Clint leaned in like he wanted to protect her, but from what? He made himself stay quiet, give her the time and space to find the words she needed, which was important with any student, but maybe especially with her, when she not only had to find a way to say things that were not easy to say, but to say them in a language that he could understand.

He was tempted, for a minute, to tell her that it was okay to sign if that was easier – she'd been doing it with Clint, after all – and let Clint interpret, but something might get lost in the translation, and it was better that he got things directly from her if he could.

The clock ticked on the wall as seconds passed, and it felt longer than it was before she finally said, "Bad things. Things... things that will make a lot of trouble if authority find out. Things I..." But she didn't finish the sentence, just shrugged.

"What kind—" Mr. Coulson started to ask, then realized it was the wrong question, at least to begin with. Start with something easier, and more to the point, even if the answer was pretty obvious. He had to be sure. "Are these things happening to you, Natasha?"

She didn't answer... which was an answer in and of itself. Yes, it was happening to her, whatever it was, and it was bad. So bad maybe she didn't even _have_ words for it. 

But no, it wasn't that, and he should have known it wasn't. Her hesitation wasn't born of a lack of facility with English; it came from a deeper understanding of how things worked than he would have expected her to have. "I know you will say you have to report anything I say, if I say something is happening to me. You will have to tell authority. But... is why you need to call FBI. They are only authority you should tell."

"Why?" Mr. Coulson asked. "Why the FBI?"

"Because local police, I do not trust. Maybe they are paid off to see nothing, hear nothing. Maybe if report come in that girl at Shield High School say something bad happen to her, maybe they tell someone who tell my uncle and then it could be much worse."

He didn't say anything for a moment, as he was too busy trying to figure out when he had fallen into a movie script, or the Twilight Zone. It was too outrageous to be true, but he couldn't call her a liar... and there was a tiny part of him that realized that, improbable as it was, there was a chance, however small, that it was possible.

But he couldn't keep the disbelief from his voice when he said, "Paid off? You sound like you're talking about the mob here."

She looked at him then, straight on, her hesitation gone, as if she felt like she didn't have to hold back anymore because he finally grasped the situation. "Yes, exactly. Russian mob. Organized crime. That is what my uncle is in. Only he is not my uncle. I don't have any uncle. He bring me here as part of things he do, and I am afraid if he gets caught doing these things, any of these things, then I will get sent back. If all of my papers, they say they are false, then where else I am going to go?"

She'd thought this through. She knew the possible consequences of coming forward with whatever it was that was going on, which he still didn't know, and she was here anyway. And she wasn't a liar. Neither of them were liars, not at heart, he didn't think. Yes, they both had very strong senses of self-preservation, and they might bend the truth to suit their needs, but this... this went _against_ that in pretty much every possible way. She was putting herself at risk, and she was here anyway.

So either she was completely deluded... or she was telling the truth.

He couldn't take a chance on which it was.

"What am I supposed to say?" he asked. "What am I supposed to tell them?"

"Tell him that you have someone who has information about criminal activity," Natasha said. "Tell them that you don't have any detail because the more people who know, the more chance for it to get out and information to be lost. Tell them—"

She didn't waver, and that, more than anything, convinced him. 

"Maybe I should just call them now," he said. "Then you can tell them yourself." They would want the information, whatever it was, first-hand, he suspected.

He saw her stiffen, but she agreed. "Okay."

But now he was the one hesitating. He was the one who wasn't certain that she was doing the right thing. Or... as much as it seemed like she knew what the fallout might be, did she _really_ know? He'd seen too many situations, and heard about even more, that escalated as soon as any kind of authority got involved. She said she didn't trust the local police, but wasn't there a chance that the FBI would contact them anyway? 

He had to be sure she understood. "You know that by doing this, you may be putting yourself in danger."

The sound she made might have been intended as a laugh, but there was so much bitterness in it, it hurt to hear. No girl her age – sixteen today – should have a reason to sound that jaded. "I am already in danger. But I know, maybe this will make worse. This is still a thing I have to do." 

"I'll be right back then." He got up and went into his office, closing the door behind him to give them some privacy, but also to give himself a minute. Elbows on desk, head in hands, he waited for his head to stop spinning, for all of this to start making sense.

But it wasn't going to, and putting it off wasn't going to change that. So he looked up the phone number for the nearest FBI field office and tapped it into his phone. He didn't want to call from the school phone; he wasn't sure why but it didn't feel right. Not that he was going to keep this from people who needed to know; he had to report it to Principal Fury, at least, but... plausible deniability for the school, maybe? He didn't know.

He forced himself up, feeling older than he would have thought possible, and went back into the room, where Natasha was curled against Clint, his arms around her, but she moved away as soon as he came in. 

He hit the Send button, and followed the prompts until an impersonal-sounding voice answered. "How can I help you?"

"I have information regarding a possible criminal operation," he said. "I need to speak to someone."

"Where are you located?" He told her, and the call was transferred, and transferred again as each time he gave a little bit more information (even though he still really hadn't given anything of importance, and the truth was he didn't _know_ anything of importance) but finally he got someone who actually asked for the name of the person that he suspected was involved in a criminal organization.

"What's your uncle's name?" Mr. Coulson asked Natasha, his hand over the receiver. "I don't have your file."

The man on the other line made a sound of annoyance, even though Mr. Coulson had made it clear to the person he talked to several transfers ago that he wasn't the one who had witness criminal activity.

"Is fake name. Real name is Aleksander Nebakov."

"Aleksander Nebakov," he said. 

There was a hesitation, the sound of shuffling papers, and then, "Is the person with the information actually there?" he asked. "I need to speak to them." But Mr. Coulson could hear a hint of urgency in the request, like the name actually meant something, and suddenly it all seemed a lot more real.

"He wants to speak to you," he said, holding the phone out to Natasha.

She took it, put it to her ear. "Yes?" And then she said yes again, and a third time, and then she looked at them, biting her lip. "You can go?"

When Clint didn't immediately move, she signed something, and he got up. Reluctantly, but they got up and retreated to the office, giving her the chance to speak to the man on the phone – a detective or agent or whatever they were called – without them listening in. 

He thought about trying to get more information from Clint; he must know _something_ about what was going on – but it wasn't really fair to ask. Not to either of them. It was Natasha's story to tell or not, and to ask him to divulge anything, even when it might be in her best interests, was a betrayal of trust that he wasn't going to ask Clint to make. Not when she was already making steps to handle the situation. 

So they watched the clock in silence, one agonizing minute after another. He didn't even try to get anything else done, although he occasionally tapped at his computer to make it seem as if he was. He was pretty sure he wasn't fooling anyone.

He could hear Natasha speaking, but not the words, and it took every ounce of self-control he had not to go listen at the door. It surprised him that Clint wasn't doing just that... but then, he wouldn't be able to hear it clearly, would he? Still, he could see that being separated from Natasha was making the boy twitchy.

Finally, almost half an hour later, she stuck her head out and looked at Mr. Coulson. "He wants to talk to you again," she said, handing him the phone. 

He took it, only half paying attention as Clint disappeared into the room with her. "Yes, hello?"

"Mr. Coulson," the voice on the other end said. "I appreciate you calling us today. I'm going to need your help setting up a time that I can come to the school to speak to Miss Romanova further. The information she's provided over the phone is a good start, but we will need to speak to her face-to-face."

"I... yes," Mr. Coulson said, momentarily tongue-tied by the no-nonsense, take-charge tone of the voice on the other end of the connection. "Of course. Anything I can do."

"Excellent. I'm glad to hear that." There was a pause, then the man continued. "I'm sure that it doesn't really need saying that we require your utmost discretion with this. The fewer people that know, the better. If at all possible, it would be best if it was kept between only yourself and your superior."

"I think that can probably be arranged," Mr. Coulson said. "Whatever is best for Natasha. Whatever it takes."

"Good. Now, I'm going to have to ask you to do something that is going to go against every instinct that you have, and I'm sorry for that, but it's how it has to be."

He stiffened, not liking the sound of it. "What's that?" he asked, trying not to sound as tense as he felt. 

"I'm going to have to ask that you don't ask Miss Romanova for any information about what she has disclosed to me. I know that you are a social worker, and you want to help her through this, but it's essential that no one know until we get a chance to take action. Including you. It's for her safety, as well as yours and that of anyone else at your school. The situation that we're dealing with is volatile, and it must be handled carefully. We have been working on a case for quite some time now, and the information that she has provided could very well be the final piece that we need to bring something big down. But if they get even a hint that something might be going down..." 

Mr. Coulson was again struck by the feeling that he was caught in some kind of movie, and he opened his mouth to respond but no sound came out, so finally he shut it.

"Can I count on your cooperation on this?" the voice – Agent Rubinski, the scrawled note he'd made on the last transfer told him – said. 

"I..." _Do I have a choice?_ "Yes. But I have to ask – how long do you think that this is going to take? Because I'm a mandatory reporter, and if I know, if I even _think_ , that—"

"I understand that, Mr. Coulson. And you've reported it. You've reported it to the authorities that are actually in a position to make things better for her instead of worse. You aren't being derelict in your duty, even if it feels that way. Just talk to whoever you need to talk to, give me a call or have them give me a call, and we'll get things moving as quickly as we can."

And with that the conversation was basically over. Mr. Coulson hung up the phone and went into the room where the teenagers were. He knew what he'd been told. He knew what he'd agreed to. But there had to be some way... "I'm under strict orders not to ask you for any details, but Natasha, if someone is hurting you, you can't go back there."

The look she gave him was almost pitying, like it made her sad and a little amused that he actually thought he could change anything. Or maybe that was how he was feeling about himself... "I can," she said, "and I will. Is not for much longer. I am stronger than you think."

"I don't doubt that you're strong, but—"

"If my uncle knows – even suspects – anything before is all over, it could be my life. I want my life, Mr. Coulson. Everything else..." She shrugged. 

Which was basically what Agent Rubinski had said, but it sounded so much worse coming from the mouth of a 16-year-old girl who was going through God knew what, and had been for God knew how long, and there was no promise of exactly when someone would step in to save her. 

And there was nothing that he could do. "Keep yourself safe," he said, which was pointless, wasted words of useless advice. 

"Don't worry," she said, and actually smiled. "Is going to be okay."

And then she turned and left without another word, and he only just managed to catch Clint by the arm before he could follow her. "How long have you known?"

Clint shrugged. "Too long."

Mr. Coulson wanted to be angry. He wanted to shake him, demand to know why he hadn't said anything. If he knew something was happening to his friend, his best friend (maybe more than that but the social worker wasn't sure and it wasn't really his business anyway) why wouldn't he say anything?

But he didn't trust authorities, and what reason had he ever been given to do so? 

And what kind of weight was that to bear? To know that something was happening to someone he so obviously cared about, but he couldn't do anything to help her, to get her out of it, to protect her from it. How could he stand it? If he'd known longer than just today, how could he let her go home at night? 

What choice did he have?

"Just... look out for her. If you can."

Clint looked at him and rolled his eyes. He didn't even try to hide it. "With all due respect, sir – I never stopped." And then he was down the hall, disappearing around the same corner Natasha had, leaving Mr. Coulson standing there with his hand still out but nothing to grasp.

**Author's Note:**

> As requested by [RoS13](http://archiveofourown.org/users/RoS13/pseuds/RoS13).


End file.
